In November, the Art in the Libraries Committee awarded College of Creative Arts students Jacqueline Circkirillo and Cancan Huang with the Dean of the Libraries’ arts awards. Huang’s work, Dolma, an oil painting, will be on display in the Downtown Campus Library lobby for the spring semester. Circkirillo’s work, Margaret, an oil painting, will go on display at Evansdale Library for the spring semester.

Family papers are a relatively common sight in archives like the WVRHC. We collect them because they tell the stories of the people of our state and region, and because they can be great genealogical resources. The WVRHC has hundreds of collections of family papers, ranging from collections with just a few items to collections like the Siler Family Papers, which contain over 150 boxes of material. I’m currently processing the Orum, Eskey, and McCaffery Family Papers, detailing intersecting family lines from Sherrard, WV, and I wanted to share a few items from the collection that I found particularly special.

McLoughlin Brothers, Inc. was a New York publishing firm which pioneered the use of color printing technologies in children’s books. Actively publishing between 1858 and 1920, the company was particularly well known for its early use of hand-stenciled colored illustrations and its later printing techniques using chromolithographs and photo engravings.

The company flourished under the leadership of John McLoughlin, Jr., who learned wood engraving and printing while working for Elton & Co., a publishing company owned by his father, John McLoughlin, Sr., and engraver/printer, Robert H. Elton. After McLoughlin, Sr. and Elton retired, John, Jr. had control of the business. He started to publish picture books under his own name and made his younger brother, Edmund McLoughlin, a partner in 1855.

Recently the West Virginia and Regional History Center received the gift of hundreds of cookbooks that are part of the Lucinda Ebersole Collection. Ms. Ebersole was bookstore co-owner, cookbook enthusiast, editor, and book collector. Her collection of cookbooks spans the late nineteenth century up to 2016. The much beloved cookbook pictured here arrived as part of the larger Ebersole collection.

Beneath the hand sewn plaid cover is the Rumford Complete Cook Book printed in 1918. Nearly every page is covered with handwritten recipes, cooking spills and splashes marking favorite recipes, clippings pasted on pages that completely cover the text and recipes attached by paperclips.

For two years now, West Virginia UniversityLibraries has been working toward bringing our materials spending in line with the new budget realities that we have faced since 2016. One of the biggest challenges in our reduction in funds is managing “bundled” journals subscriptions that historically provided us with more journal title subscriptions at less cost. Unfortunately, over time the inflationary costs of these bundle subscriptions have outpaced the size of our budget.

In 2016, when we were first presented with the need to reduce our spending, bundled journal packages accounted for 30 percent of our materials budget but only provided 6.2 percent of our titles. We recognized at the time that we would have to address this significant portion of our budget to achieve the necessary savings. We did so immediately by unbundling our Wiley subscription package which provided us with about $400,000 in savings at that time. Now we are moving to unbundle the remaining packages.

Remedies, Consequences and Negotiations

Our librarians have spent the last year and a half doing a tremendous amount of analysis on our bundled packages. We have looked at where there is title overlap between different packages we purchase. We have purchased a detailed report that helps us understand which journals our campus researchers are downloading from, publishing in, and citing in their published research. Based on that we have been able to rank in importance the journals for our community in a data driven manner. Our internal collections advisory committee has reviewed and adjusted this work based on extra knowledge gleaned from relationships they have developed with colleges across campus.

The WVU Libraries’ Arts in the Libraries Committee is seeking content from scholars, artists, community groups and practitioners from a range of fields to integrate into a curated exhibition that will be designed and installed in WVU’s Downtown Campus Library in the spring and summer of 2019, and potentially travel throughout the state.

“This collaborative, multidisciplinary exhibit and programming will address the dominant contemporary narratives about Appalachia in a new way – how the people of Appalachia have worked and will work to rewrite their own narrative and transcend limiting definitions of what it means to be Appalachian,” said Sally Deskins, exhibits and programs coordinator for WVU Libraries.

The winner will receive a $1,000 professional development funds award and an exhibition in Downtown Campus Library, Room 1020. The winner will give a public lecture, program, or demonstration. Non-art faculty or staff may submit a proposal based on their academic research that could become visualized with Library consultation and limited resources. Applicants must submit an outline of their proposal on the Propose an Exhibit online form, with “Annual Faculty/Staff Exhibits Award Submission” in the Proposed Exhibit Location section, by midnight Feb. 28, 2019. More information is available at exhibits.lib.wvu.edu.

The 2018 winner was Dr. Jaime Banks, who worked with Dr. Nick Bowman to create the exhibit “Avatars and their Players: From Object to Other,” which visualizes their scholarly research on the experiences and effects of video gamers’ connections with their avatars. It will remain on display in the Downtown Campus Library, Room 1020, through Dec. 30.

Sometimes, when processing a new collection of archival materials, you get an interesting snapshot of someone’s life. Occasionally, if you want to know how that person’s story continues, you will have to do some research outside the collection. While processing a new collection, I came across clippings and a few photos of Esther Benford. According to one of the clippings, from a city newspaper, she was a WVU student on track to receive in 1937 the “first degree in civil engineering ever granted to a woman” (probably “at WVU” and not the first in the world, but the article didn’t specify).

The WVU Libraries Faculty Assembly is seeking nominations for the Outstanding Librarian Award and Distinguished Service Award. These awards are presented once every three years to recognize exceptional contributions toward the delivery, development or expansion of library services or special programs for the constituencies of WVU.

“Karen has been successful in various roles in our libraries because she is a great leader and consensus-builder who has truly earned the trust and support of her talented faculty and staff,” McConnell said. “I know that she will continue to lead in this thoughtful, positive way as the dean, ensuring that the WVU libraries continue to be among our most valuable campus resources.”

Diaz first joined the WVU Libraries as associate dean in January of 2016. She worked extensively with academic department heads and initiated efforts to meet the challenges of a contemporary research library through Open Access initiatives, “engaged librarian” models and cross-functional teams.

On the 11th of this month of November, at 11:00 AM Paris time, will occur the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. America suffered casualties of over 115,000 in this conflict, making it the third costliest war in American history, following World War II (over 400,000) and the Civil War (750,000). This sacrifice inspired President Woodrow Wilson in 1919 to ask Americans to recognize “those who had died in the country’s service.” In time, his moral injunction led to Congressional actions that ultimately established in 1957 Veterans Day as we know it today.

In times of relative peace, we of course recognize the service of those in the armed forces. In times of war we aspire to more. These aspirations often take the form of serving in hospitals, working in the arms industry, etc. In addition to these activities of material support, however, are ones of moral support to the troops. In the Second World War the United Service Organizations (USO), a nonprofit organization established by request of President Roosevelt in 1941, provided such support. Although many entertainers answered the call, the comedian Bob Hope has become most identified with the USO, so much so that the organization is currently known as the “Bob Hope USO.” He not only entertained during World War II, but also during the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam. Lesser known and even forgotten, however, is Elsie Janis, a vaudeville star who also entertained troops, albeit during World War I. Her rapport and connection to audiences of soldiers was so great that she was immortalized as “the sweetheart of the AEF” (American Expeditionary Force). The History Center has recently acquired memorabilia regarding Elsie Janis, including photographs, clippings, and other material documenting both her vaudeville years and World War I service. Read the rest of this entry »

Do gamers have a special connection with their avatars? Drs. Jaime Banks and Nick Bowman will explore that and other questions in their presentation Nov. 13, at 2 p.m. in the Downtown Campus Library, Room 1020.

The “Avatars and their Players: From Object to Other” exhibit, on display at the DCL through Dec. 30, visualizes Banks and Bowman’s scholarly research on the experiences and effects of video gamers’ connections with their avatars. The exhibit features a curated collection of submitted images and narratives avatar stories that recounts users’ favorite memories with favorite videogame avatars.

“These stories illustrate the impact avatars have had on their lives—dispelling assumptions and myths about gamers and highlighting the ways that avatars can be meaningful in contemporary life,” Banks said.

Wednesday, October 31, the Rare Book Room, part of the West Virginia and Regional History Center at the WVU Libraries, hosted an event to highlight one of our extraordinary collections: the works of Isaac Asimov. This event was designed to recognize our extensive Asimov collection and to celebrate our donors.

The event included an exhibit, shown below, that was on display in the Downtown Campus Library Atrium, and a talk by Nebula award winning author Andy Duncan, Professor of Writing at Frostburg State University.

“The Research Repository @ WVU provides the University community with a library-supported platform for sharing their work with the worldwide scholarly community,” said Ian Harmon, scholarly communications librarian.

Harmon said the Research Repository, available at researchrepository.wvu.edu, can increase a work’s impact, provide free access to federally funded research and share findings with researchers and others within West Virginia and around the world who may not be able to afford high journal subscription fees. The Repository is a collaboration between the Libraries and the WVU Office of Research.

Beans mean a lot of things to a lot of people. Growing up outside Appalachia, I remember seven-bean soups being prepared, glass jars full of artfully layered dry ingredients, and sold by church ladies for charity purposes, frequently around the holidays. When my family bought a jar, it always felt like a treat. The other bean-treat of my youth was our neighbor’s chili. I’m fairly certain that it contained multiple kinds of beans, plus a few green veggie bits, and such a good flavor. (I invite you to imagine my dismay when we moved to Texas and I was told that “real” chili contained no beans at all.)

For people across the country and across the globe, beans are a staple food. You can have baked beans, beans on toast, falafel, hummus, refried beans, red bean paste, red beans and rice, succotash, lentil soup, shiro, etc. As I grew up, I learned about and tried a variety of bean-related dishes. Then I moved to West Virginia and I heard about soup beans. Not bean soup—soup beans. Like many modern-day armchair researchers, I started my research into soup beans on the internet, but I was not satisfied. My next step was to take a look at what library resources we had on soup beans.

Two Women Demonstrate How to Can Beans at State 4-H Camp in Jackson’s Mill, Lewis County, W. Va.

This first edition of “I, Robot” is preserved in the Libraries’ Isaac Asimov Collection.

Before lighting a jack-o-lantern or donning a Halloween costume, plan to attend West Virginia UniversityLibraries’ Isaac Asimov exhibit and lecture on October 31 from 2-3:30 p.m. in the Downtown Campus Library Atrium.

“An Afternoon with Asimov” will provide a glimpse into the Libraries’ extensive Isaac Asimov Collection and insight into the prolific science fiction author’s body of work. Andy Duncan, a Frostburg State University English professor, will open the event with a talk titled “The New Futurians.”

“Asimov was one of the original Futurians of the 1930s and 1940s, who insisted that science fiction was a vehicle for politics, a means of changing the world for the better. A fringe opinion then, the Futurian ideal today is central to the genre, as the 2018 Hugo ceremony demonstrates,” Duncan said. “Where this leaves Asimov and his reputation in the 21st century is a puzzle his positronic robots might have appreciated.”

Autumn Cotton by Tony Fitzpatrick is on display at the WVU Art Museum.

West Virginia University Libraries encourages University and Morgantown community members to participate in the “Mountaineer Week Art Crawl” on Friday, Oct. 26. In addition to exhibits, the tour will feature a scavenger hunt and refreshments. Admission and participation are free.

Open Access (OA) refers to free online access to digital full-text scientific and scholarly material, primarily research articles published in peer-reviewed journals.

“The current scholarly publishing system is economically unsustainable for libraries, and this makes it very difficult for us to provide our patrons with access to the materials they need,” said Ian Harmon, scholarly communications librarian. “OA publishing is an alternative to this system, one that can remove barriers to research, such as paywalls, and increase the rate of scientific progress.”

[Editor’s note: October is American Archives Month, and I am grateful to Jessica for writing out her work process to show us how research in the archives can take you on an adventure! She also proves that archives aren’t just for big scholarly projects–they can be useful for local history research, genealogy, and more.]

We do our best to include all relevant information, and to identify the people and places in every photo we put onto West Virginia History OnView. Sometimes, we just do not know who the people are, or where they are. Recently, I came across this photo, which shows a group of men working to move a small building across the road. The town is unidentified, and there is no additional information other than what is in the image.

Pretty great, right? The buildings have interesting signs, and the group of men appear to be moving a small building with ropes. Intriguing! So I settled down and got to work. First, I ran an online search for “The People’s Clothier,” “Verzi’s Saloon,” “Davis Hardware & Furniture Co,” and “Theo Stumpp Tailor.” Businesses register with the state, and typically show up in the state “Report of the Treasurer.” Not having any luck with this type of searches, I turned to Ancestry.com. Read the rest of this entry »